


Your Ghost

by ragingrainbow



Category: Adam Lambert (Musician), Tommy Ratliff (Musician)
Genre: Angst, Ghosts, M/M, Suicidal Thoughts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-01-16
Updated: 2011-01-16
Packaged: 2017-10-14 19:27:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,133
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/152655
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ragingrainbow/pseuds/ragingrainbow
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>A year ago, he had thought that there could be nothing worse than spending days at a loved one’s bedside, knowing they were slipping away and being absolutely powerless to stop it. </i>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	Your Ghost

**Author's Note:**

> Written for glam_bingo prompt AU:Ghost.

One year. 

One  _miserable_ , lonely, fake-smile filled year. 

A year used to seem so short, used to pass by in a blur and all of a sudden the next one would creep up on you. This year had dragged on and on and on. Yet it hadn't been enough time to forget, enough time for his heart to heal, enough time to stop the tears from soaking his pillow every single night. And he didn't think there would ever be enough time, no matter how many more years he soldiered through, putting on his solid mask every morning and just  _pretending_  that everything was alright. Convincing people that he was actually alive, when he felt completely dead on the inside. 

Alright, not quite one year. It had actually been 364 days, 23 hours and 46 minutes. He would've counted seconds too, had his silver-plated watch actually had a second hand. And every one of those days, hours, minutes had been complete agony, eating away at his strength bit by bit until he just had no reserves left. 

A year ago, he had thought that there could be nothing worse than spending days at a loved one’s bedside, knowing they were slipping away and being absolutely powerless to stop it. 

He had really  _believed_  that there could be no worse pain than knowing that your touch, your voice, your prayers, and any amount of pleading and bargaining with any higher power that may - or may not - exist wouldn't change the inevitable outcome. 

But he'd been wrong; he'd realized that much in the past year.

The pain he felt then was nothing,  _nothing_  compared to the heartache of trying to piece a shattered life back together. He'd tried, tried so damn hard, but it seemed that every time he managed to grasp one of the pieces, they cut his hands. 

And he ended up bleeding, hurt even worse than before. 

In the end he had decided that it just wasn't worth it, that there was no use trying to fix something that was obviously broken beyond repair. He just wished everyone around him could have realized this too, sparing him the guilt that was currently gripping at his guts as he stared himself down in the mirror, his knuckles turning as white as the cool porcelain of the sink he was gripping to keep himself steady. 

They would understand, he hoped, when they read the letter that he had left fully visible on the coffee table downstairs. 

Or, if they didn't, at least he would like to believe that they wouldn't blame themselves, or each other. It wasn't like there was anything any of them could have done to prevent this, and he had tried really hard to convey this in his note. Short of bringing Tommy back to him, which was impossible for anyone to do, he couldn't see any way for his life to be anywhere close to whole ever again.

He glanced over at the clock he'd set on top of the toilet. Six more minutes. He turned back to the mirror. His eyes stared blankly back at him, his face pale and looking the same as it had for almost a whole year now; like he was already dead. He glanced back at the clock. Four minutes. He decided that would be enough time to complete his task.

He took one last searching look in the mirror as he picked up the plastic bottle. He saw nothing to stem his determination; not a single trace of anything that would be worth living for. Still, his hand was shaking a little as he tipped the first few pills into it. 

He had barely swallowed the pills when a sudden force knocked his hand, sending the bottle flying, the pills spilling onto the marble tiles with a clatter that wasn't unlike that of hailstones landing on a roof. Or, Adam fancied momentarily, the sound of a heart shattering.

"Adam." 

The whisper was so quiet that Adam was sure he'd imagined it. He  _must_  have imagined it, because it was impossible for it to be real. 

And yet, the temperature around him suddenly seemed to change, his skin prickling with the warm sensation of an embrace.

"Tommy?" He barely recognized his own voice, broken and tentative as he tried to turn towards the warmth.

"No, baby, don't turn around. Look in the mirror for me."

He did, and gasped, a shudder running through him. He thought that he should be scared; if nothing else what he saw must be proof that he was really fucking  _insane_. But it wasn’t frightening. In fact, it was the complete opposite, as if seeing a dead lover's reflection behind your own in the mirror was completely normal.

"Listen to me, Adam. Do you remember all the plans we had for the future? All our dreams?"

Adam noticed that the mouth on Tommy's reflection didn't move as he spoke, but even that seemed to register as something normal in his brain. He felt the warm air pull closer around him, a ghost of a touch on his cheek. He nodded, a single tear rolling down his cheek.

"I need you to make them come true."

"I can't." 

"Yes, you  _can_. I know you can. You were always so fucking strong. And I'm right here, see? You didn't lose me, Adam. You could  _never_  lose me."

Adam was crying freely now, and he closed his eyes for a moment, a bit scared now - not of the ghost or angel or whatever the fuck Tommy was - but of  _living_. He opened his eyes, the mirror still reflected two faces, though they were blurred with his tears now.

"I love you," he whispered, his hand reaching out to touch Tommy's cheek in the mirror. His fingers rested against the cool glass, his brain recalling the feel of warm skin instead. 

Tommy's reflected eyes fell shut, and there was a ripple in the air around Adam, like a shudder. Adam wondered if ghosts could feel touches, if they could recall what human contact felt like. Judging from the way warm air kept brushing against him he would suppose that they did, maybe even craved it as much as they had when they were human.

"I love you too. Please live for me."

Even though there was no movement in the mirror, Adam felt something brush against his lips. He gasped, instinctively breathing in, the air that filled his lungs was warm, as if it had just left another body. The warmth spread throughout his limbs, and he realized with a start that his own reflection was smiling back at him now.

It was only a tiny smile, but it was the first real smile that had grazed his lips in over a year.

 


End file.
